Skip to main content
Rural Health Information Hub
Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Project Examples: Effective

Browse rural projects that meet this collection's second highest level of evidence. For each example listed, the approach has been reported in a peer-reviewed publication.

Care for Our Elders/Wakanki Ewastepikte

Updated/reviewed June 2024

  • Need: To provide Lakota elders with tools and opportunities for advance care planning.
  • Intervention: An outreach program in South Dakota helps Lakota elders with advance care planning and wills by providing bilingual brochures and advance directive coaches.
  • Results: Care for Our Elders saw an increase in the number of Lakota elders understanding the differences between a will and a living will and the need to have end-of-life discussions with family and healthcare providers.

HoMBReS

Updated/reviewed May 2024

  • Need: To reduce the risk of HIV/STDs among Latino men living in rural regions of the United States.
  • Intervention: Soccer team leaders are elected and trained as lay health advisors to promote sexual health education among team members.
  • Results: Program participants report an increase in HIV testing, an increase in condom use, and an increase in awareness of how to prevent the transmission of HIV.

Project Lazarus

Updated/reviewed May 2024

  • Need: To reduce overdose-related deaths among prescription opioid users in rural Wilkes County, North Carolina
  • Intervention: Education and tools are provided for prescribers, patients and community members to lessen drug supply and demand, and to reduce harm in prescription opioid use
  • Results: Opioid overdose death rates have decreased in Wilkes County

Parent Partners

Updated/reviewed March 2024

  • Need: To support parents whose children have been removed from the home so that the parents can make the changes needed for the children to return safely home.
  • Intervention: A statewide program in Iowa pairs these parents with mentors who have successfully navigated their own child welfare cases.
  • Results: Participants' children were more likely to return home than non-participants' children and participants were less likely to have another child removal within a year of the child coming home.

STAIR (Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation)

Updated/reviewed March 2024

  • Need: To increase access to telemental health services for rural veterans, especially women, with a history of trauma.
  • Intervention: STAIR (Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation) is a 10-week program designed to reduce PTSD and depression symptoms and increase emotional regulation and social functioning in clients.
  • Results: Therapists reported that clients attended more sessions when offered via teleconferencing, and clients reported satisfaction with the program.

Franklin Cardiovascular Health Program (FCHP)

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To develop sustainable, community-wide prevention methods for cardiovascular diseases in order to change behaviors and healthcare outcomes in rural Maine.
  • Intervention: Local community groups and Franklin Memorial Hospital staff studied mortality and hospitalization rates for 40 years in this rural, low-income area of Farmington to seek intervention methods that could address cardiovascular diseases.
  • Results: A decline in cardiovascular-related mortality rates and improved prevention methods for hypertension, high cholesterol, and smoking.

I Got You: Healthy Life Choices for Teens (IGU)

funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To improve awareness of behavioral and mental health issues by students in rural, east central Mississippi.
  • Intervention: An intensive community mental health outreach program was implemented for students in rural Mississippi.
  • Results: As of 2018 and on a yearly basis, 6,000 7th and 8th grade students receive mental health education on a variety of topics which improves their ability to recognize mental health issues, high risk behaviors, and manage their own choices.

Spit It Out-West Virginia

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: Due to West Virginia's high ranking for its use of smokeless tobacco, prevention and cessation education efforts were needed.
  • Intervention: Development and implementation of the Spit It Out-West Virginia program.
  • Results: Supported by a 2008-2010 grant allowing the program to be delivered to hundreds of people, 5 workplaces became tobacco free. The program continues to be delivered across the state and reaches hundreds with its face-to-face presentations and thousands with its specific media prevention and cessation messages.

Wyoming Trauma Telehealth Treatment Clinic

Updated/reviewed February 2024

  • Need: To provide psychotherapy to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
  • Intervention: University of Wyoming psychology doctoral students provide psychotherapy via videoconferencing to crisis center clients in two rural locations.
  • Results: Clients, student therapists, and crisis center staff were satisfied with the quality of services, and clients reported reduced symptoms of depression and PTSD.

Community-Based Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program

Updated/reviewed January 2024

  • Need: More evidenced-based chronic lower respiratory disease management options for rural Appalachia patients, where lung disease rates are among the highest in the country.
  • Intervention: Implementation of outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation programs in 2 Federally Qualified Health Centers and a Critical Access Hospital in West Virginia.
  • Results: Improved health outcomes for patients with chronic lower respiratory disease, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.